With Assembly sessions getting impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, States used the Ordinance route more for making laws in 2020. And most of the laws that were enacted were “without detailed scrutiny”.
Data from 19 States show that on an average they promulgated 14 Ordinances over the last year with Kerala alone coming out with 81 Ordinances. As for Bills, the states passed an average of 22 Bills (excluding Appropriation Bills) with Karnataka topping the list with 61 Bills, the highest in the country, followed by Andhra Pradesh with 41 legislations. The lowest was by Delhi, which passed one Bill. West Bengal and Kerala each passed two and three Bills, respectively.
Nearly half of the 81 Ordinances promulgated by Kerala were the ones that were re-promulgated, i.e., the same Ordinance was issued again after an intervening session, according to the report of PRS Legislative, an NGO. Karnataka (24), Uttar Pradesh (23), Maharashtra (21) and Andhra Pradesh (16) followed Kerala vis a vis Ordinances.
In 2020, the State Assemblies also sat for fewer days compared to their average sittings in 2016-19, as per data of 19 state legislatures analysed by PRS Legislative.
The report shows that states had passed 29 laws related to agriculture and these laws encompass a range of subject matters, including agriculture marketing and agricultural land laws.
State legislatures passed most Bills without detailed scrutiny as 59 percent of the Bills were passed on the same day that they were introduced in the legislature. “A further 14% were passed within a day of being introduced. Only 9% of the Bills were passed more than five days after introduction (some of these were referred to a committee for further examination),” it said.
“States that passed all Bills on the same day as their introduction include Bihar (13), Jharkhand (8), Madhya Pradesh (5), and Punjab (26). Some states like Haryana (34 out of 35 Bills) and Uttar Pradesh (32 out of 37 Bills) passed most of their Bills on the same day as their introduction. States like Karnataka and Rajasthan passed a majority of their Bills two or more days after their introduction in the legislature. In both states, 37% of Bills had a gap of at least five days between their introduction and passing,” the report said.
The 19 states met for an average of 18 days in the year as the meetings were affected due to COVID-19. In contrast, between 2016 and 2019, these 19 states met for an average of 29 days a year. In 2020, Karnataka (31 days) met for the highest number of days, followed by Rajasthan (29 days), and Himachal Pradesh (25 days). Kerala dropped from an average of 53 days in the previous four years to meeting for just 20 days in 2020. Note that Parliament met for 33 days in 2020,” the report said.
The report said that Kerala has constituted 14 subject committees for examining Bills while in some states like Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra, select committees (adhoc committees) were constituted for scrutinising important Bills.